Project Summary
Since I first joined Grace, March Madness has been a subject of great interest to me. The notion of the practically limitless possibilities to choose from as the focus of my March Madness project was at once overwhelming and incredibly exciting. In the year leading up to the beginning of my March Madness experience, I would often think up different project ideas to abide my restless anticipation. When the time came to sit down and determine the focus for my project, however, one choice seemed to stand distinctly apart from the rest: the idea of designing and creating an entirely unique sneaker, from a sketch on paper to a shoe on foot.
Though I had little prior technical experience designing sneakers, their cultural sphere has been an interest of mine since I was very young. For as long as sneakers have been a hobby for me, I’ve been eager to design my own completely original sneaker. I’m innately curious and creative, so the prospect of realizing my own ideas for a sneaker was an impulse that occurred to me early and often. I can also say with certainty that any informal past experience in the realm of sneaker design left me wholly underprepared for the task itself.
While working on this project I’ve learned many new and obscure details regarding the practical process of building the blueprint for a sneaker and executing the design from the ground up. Since the beginning of this project, it has at times seemed less than likely that I would find a practical way to realize my design in functional, wearable form. Despite these logistical obstacles, my goal to create a pair of original sneakers has been clear to me for the entire time, and my long-term efforts have yielded not only a pair of sneakers whose design is all my own, but also the permanent groundwork for the production of additional pairs, should I ever want to create an expanded run of my first-ever sneaker design. Were I to continue on this journey, my next steps might include looking into ways to produce a greater run of pairs in various sizes, or even moving on to design and produce another sneaker to add to my catalogue.
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